Scream

Saw Scream, a fairly clever horror-deconstruction film. The film follows Sidney whose friends are being murdered by some dude in an Edvard Munch mask and whose mother was killed years ago by some other dude. Her friends are all film buffs and rattle off references to Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, Friday the 13th, etc, etc. Sidney's high school janitor is obviously Freddy Kruger. One dude who works at an actual video store sets up the tropes that will be subverted, honored, or fulfilled. The film repeatedly sets up scenes where characters liken reality to film. Sidney's boyfriend at one point asks that they take their relationship from PG to PG-13. I really dug all of that.

Unfortunately, the film also relies on the infuriating frustration of films like Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th. All of the 30-year-old "teenagers" act like the most annoying douche-bags in the world and while teenagers are kind of snotty I remember my childhood and I and my friends were snotty in a totally different manner!! The adults are all bumbling doofuses and Sidney's so-called friends exist only to show up too late to witness anything and to be assholes to her. The film is kind of playing up the stereotypically over-sexed, eye-rolling, jerk teenager here. Several adult characters shake their heads about how desensitized "kids these days" are and indeed the kids are frequently unimaginably mean (though, true to the overarching obsession of the film, they're only repeating what they've seen on TV.) So I get that it's on purpose, but the cleverness of the conceit doesn't make the execution any more palatable. After five seconds I wanted to give all of the characters a hearty slap and as the film wore on, I quickly began rooting for whole-sale teen-massacre, ala Carrie.

It's tough to tell if this film is supposed to be a straight parody or just self-aware. There are a few jump-scares which are so patently not scary, I didn't even flinch. They've gotta be mocking the concept, right? Then again, the killer is implacable and, although he does trip more than Mike Meyers ever did, is still pretty scary. I think the film is attempting this high-wire act of simultaneously subverting and honoring slasher tropes, the way Joss Whedon likes to do (see Cabin in the Woods.) At one point a character is watching Halloween and shouts at the character to look behind her. While he's shouting, the actual killer is right behind him. Later on, other characters shout at his televised image to look behind him. The meta-level leap to imagining a killer right behind us, the viewers, is obvious. The idea is both silly and kind of unsettling. Well done. A secondary and immediately consequential theme is that of violence's effect on The Youth of today.

Sidney's boyfriend is such a film buff that he insists that reality is one big movie. Sidney, far more sensibly, insists that reality is different from a film. Sidney has also been hurt by sensationalized violence, however, as we discover. Her mother's murder was sensationalized by a Nancy-Grace-esque news-barbie (another annoying character to round out the infuriating ensemble) who bedeviled Sidney with conspiracy theories and counter-narratives. The film ultimately puts its thesis, that films don't create homicidal lunatics but they do enable them, in the mouth of the killer. This is a bit equivocal however: if you don't like that argument, just keep in mind it's source! See? You can still like the movie, now! This is Wes Craven's weakness however. He wants to make statements, but doesn't want to cause trouble. He halts halfway and says not much.

The film was very interesting. Some of the meta-level stuff about slashers is so obvious you'd have to be blind to miss it but there's subtle stuff as well and plenty of gray area to discuss. I ultimately didn't enjoy it however. The characters were just way too grating. The film is clever, but man, if I have to see that one idiot's goddamn tongue one more time!